High Cultist
'High Cultist' The High Cultist is the leader of an entire town of worshipers dedicated to the Great Old Ones. However, regular human sacrifices to weed out the unworthy have left the town with only a small but highly dedicated population. There is a special sea water well in the town where women are encouraged to submerge themselves in the hope of being impregnated by a Great Old One. This never happens, but many women find themselves taken by a Deep One instead. The offspring of such a union will be a hideous fish-like humanoid instead of the noble Starchild everyone hopes for. These half-human hybrids are highly devoted to the cause and will help the cultists spread the influence of the Great Old Ones. The cultists build similar sea water wells in all coastal settlements they conquer and subject the population to their rites, thus gaining the services of the resulting hybrids as soldiers for the High Cultist's armies or as a defensive force for the settlement. The High Cultist needs to conquer more settlements to gain sacrifices. They are needed to summon Deep Ones from the depths of the sea and convince them to support the High Cultist's cause. Summoning rituals are always risky and a successful cultist never summons anything that he cannot also kill if things go awry. Even though his service to the Great Old Ones has changed him, the High Cultist is ultimately human by nature and unable to grasp that which is required to perform the most difficult rituals. To gain access to such magic, the High Cultist must summon an Old One to continue into the realms where he himself cannot go. Starspawn can use astrology to divine the location of enemies and to open pathways for powerful Horrors to attack them. The Queen of the Deep is an Old One who can summon entire armies from the deep. Abilities: *The High Cultist gains hybrids from all coastal settlements. *Cultists can use sacrifices to summon beings from nearby seas and lakes. *Starspawn can use sacrifices to send Horrors from afar. *Starspawn can use sacrifices to learn about enemy armies. Leaders: *High Cultist *Cultist of the Deep *Captain (mercenary) Units: *Spearmen *Swordsmen *Archers *Crossbowmen *Heavy Infantries *Catapult *Scouts (mercenary) Leader Summons: *Basalt King *Basalt Queen *Elder Star Spawn (upgrade) *Hybrid Cultist *Star Spawn *Star Child (upgrade) *Shambler Prince Summons: *Anglers of the Depths *Angler Spawns *Deep Ones *Deep One Warriors *Hybrid Peasants* *Hybrid Soldiers* *Hybrid Spearmen* *Insane Peasants* *Pillars of the Depths *Shamblers *War Shamblers *Automatically spawns in Coastal Villages and Ports at an irregular pace. Horror Summons: *Brass Claw Horrors *Dream Horrors* *Float Cat Horrors *Gore Tide Horrors *Horror Mantises *Horror Olms* *Mind Slime Horrors *Moon Horrors* *Soultorns *Spine Membrane Horrors *Greater Horror All Horrors are summoned as members of the neutral "Horrors" faction, so they will attack every other faction, including the one that summoned them. Strategy You have a chance at gaining free units every turn in coastal settlements. These include your starter town, Coastal Village, and Port. While these units aren't that powerful, they are free and the towns also give you sacrifices. On top of that, you can only summon/upgrade your casters near a body of water (coast, rivers, lakes- frozen don't count). Add it all up, and its in your best interest to expand first along the coast. You can station captains nearby clusters of coastal settlements to round up your free units, and then add them to your main army or begin pushing inland with them. A note on how the summons work, your initial High Cultist (leader) is upgraded as much as he can be. You'll need to use Contact Old Ones to summon leaders capable of the higher level rituals. Basalt Queen and Basalt King can both do all the same rituals as the High Cultist (leader), with the addition of Army of the Deep. The Basalts use hydromancy only. Army of the deep always has a Basalt King/Queen with it, so you'll wind up with a glut of casters. Basalts are also Giant Sized as well as Amphibian, so they make excellent scouts to continue sending up the coasts/along rivers (moving in water will only cost them 1 AP). When they find a prize target (like a Port) they can summon reinforcements and take it. Things get interesting whenever you summon a Star Spawn (Through Contact Old Ones, as this opens up a new set of rituals. Star Spawn} and [[Elder Star Spawn can use the same rituals at the same costs, just the elder has higher stats/access to level 3 magic. If you just want to use your first star spawn for astrology, don't bother upgrading him and just leave him in a well defended area. Astrology is only 1 sacrifice per cast, within a few turns you can easily find an enemy player and/or prize locations (cities, lightly defended mines, libraries). Thus, from the safety of a guarded citadel, your Star Spawn can locate targets for your main army to push towards. The horrors aren't powerful on their own, but especially when you get 2 star spawns you can bombard an enemy player from across the map with 3-4 greater horrors. Less magically inclined armies are particularly vulnerable to this! While the horrors aren't under your control, they do flag locations under the "horror" faction, and you can defeat an enemy by sending horrors to claim their last citadel/kill their last hero- all from 50+ tiles away on the other side of the map! Keep in mind, that surviving horrors will continue to wander the map freely- if you summon too close to your own territory, you might begin loosing settlements and mines to your own rampaging horrors. Otherwise, you can just summon horrors directly on top of a powerful army you are about to attack to soften them up. Category:Classes